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Planning Bill

Notwithstanding the Minister's comments in dismissing the amendment on third party rights of appeal, does she not accept that many communities need further checks and balances, particularly where an application contravenes a planning policy but is nevertheless passed, where it works on the margins of local planning policy, or where, as in my constituency, the regional development agency has been involved in instructing a developer to apply for a certain number of houses, knowing full well that the RDA will have a role in determining the outcome of the application later in the process? Surely in those circumstances, it would be appropriate to have a more transparent mechanism by which the local community could have a third party right of appeal?